What is Paint Correction – BMW 328i

Paint Correction is the process of leveling your car’s clear coat to an even surface. By doing so, scratches are thus removed and a new fresh layer of clear coat is exposed. By having swirls and scratches in your paint, light reflects improperly which causes the car to look less shiny. When the surface is flat and refined, light bounces off evenly and gives that brand new show room shine you seek!

Understanding Paint Defects

It’s important that you know and understand the different type of paint defects that happen to your car. That way, the right method of correction can be applied to fixing such defects. On the graphic on the right, you can see 5 of the most common paint defects.

Typically all 5, except for deep scratches, can for the most part be completely leveled down and removed from view.

If you have a deeper scratch that has gone through not only the clear coat, but paint as well, you would need to have that scratch touched up and blended in to the rest of the panel.

Before – Top Image

The BMW 328i had not been detailed in a very long time. There was a ton of embedded dirt and environmental contaminants. Once the car was hand washed and clayed, we were able to take a closer look at the severety of the swirls and scratches in the paint. Which you can see in the image above.

After – Bottom Image

After a complete two stage paint correction, we leveled down the paint and then polished it to restore back the show room shine. You can see how clear the reflection of the over head lights are in the paint compared to the before paint correction image above. After 8+ Hours of paint correction and polishing, the car was protected using Ceramic Pro Sport, locking in and enhancing the shine for 6+ months.

What Stage of Paint Correction Do You Need?

The short answer is, it depends on your vehicle. But as we all know, every short answer always has a longer answer behind it, so here goes.

Proper inspection is key, and I say that to you with the most emphasis as possible. It’s very important to be able to see and identify the different type of defects your car’s paint has prior to starting any sort of paint correction process.

Our method, like many other professionals, involves a rigorous test spot where we will try different machines, pads, and compounds/polishes to see which method will acheieve the best results with the minimal amount of clear coat removal. By doing so, we are able to guage how much or little clear coat needs to be taken off to reveal a fresh flat surface that’s defect free.

Once we figure out the best combination of tools and compounds/polishes, we do a second test spot to make sure the results are the same as the first. That way we can be 100% sure, prior to doing the entire car, that the combination is going to achieve the best results with the least amount of abrassion on the clear coat.

The general rule of thumb is, if your car is one year old or newer you can repair most of the visible defects with a quick polish. If it’s more than a year old or has been taken to the automatic car wash then it may require at minimum, a true 1 stage polish which will remove up to 50% of defects in your paint. Beyond that would be a 2 stage correction, which will remove up to 90% of defects. A 2 stage is basically going over your car’s entire paint with an aggressive compound to quickly level down the clear coat to remove the defects then go back over your entire car with a fine polish to refine the paint and give it that show car shine and depth. This process generally takes more than eight hours of machine polishing.

You can view our various Paint Correction packages and general pricing under the Services tab by clicking on Paint Correction.

Conclusion

If your car’s shine is looking dull and in need of some proper paint correction, it’s important to properly inspect the defects first and take the proper method of correction. If you’re ready to have your car’s paint corrected, give us a call (925) 338-0244.